MRN

The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

How i was summoned to the knesset

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Ram Cohen

(source: Occupation Magazine)

On Monday, June 21, I am to appear before the Knesset Education Committee and the Minister of Education, Mr. Gideon Saar, following my unequivocal words to my students, condemning the 43 year-old occupation and rule over the life of the Palestinian people.

A school principal should have a clear and unequivocal moral position about any subject and issue on the agenda of Israeli society. A principal is not an educational clerk. A principal must have, for example, something to say about the deportation of the children of migrant workers, trafficking in women, the separation fence, the withdrawal from Gaza, minimum wage law, settlers attacking Palestinian villagers to exact a `price tag`, the removal of Arabs from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the siege on Gaza, corruption in government, or the relations of religion and state.

It is the duty of a school principal to take a stand and to defend it if necessary. A principal can not rest content with nodding and mumbling when students ask questions about the conflicts in Israeli society. The one who gives evasive answers is a hollow person, not worthy of being called an educator. Being an educator means to uphold a set of universal and national values which deserve to be part of the state`s symbols.

Who the aggressor is

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

(source: The Jordan Times)

The world has welcomed Israel’s decision to ease the blockade of Gaza ever so slightly. This is a very unfortunate position, because it in effect legitimises the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which very much remains in force.

That the world should applaud the fact that Israel is now allowing all kinds of food and toys to reach the Gaza Strip is, frankly, astonishing. It is evidence of rank prejudice against Palestinians, who are treated merely as people not deserving more than to be recipients of aid.What is needed, of course, is a full lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, as well as a full lifting of the restrictions on movement of Palestinians, still very much in force in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Palestinians want to build a state. That requires, at a minimum, two things: the world to begin to ramp up pressure on Israel to roll back its half-a-century-long occupation; and Palestinians to be granted the opportunity to try and build an economy away from international donations and towards self-reliance.These are the ABCs of state building. They are fundamental to self-determination. And without them, all international declarations in support of Palestinians’ rights are empty words.

Psychiatrist of Isaraeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu commits suicide

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Anguished Suicide Note Cites ‘Deluge of Doublethink’ In Driving Kind-Hearted Shrink to Despair

By Michael K Smith

(source: AlJazeera)

Moshe Yatom, a prominent Israeli psychiatrist who successfully cured the most extreme forms of mental illness throughout a distinguished career, was found dead at his home in Tel Aviv yesterday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A suicide note at his side explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been his patient for the last nine years, had “sucked the life right out of me.”

“I can’t take it anymore,” wrote Yatom. “Robbery is redemption, apartheid is freedom, peace activists are terrorists, murder is self-defense, piracy is legality, Palestinians are Jordanians, annexation is liberation, there’s no end to his contradictions. Freud promised rationality would reign in the instinctual passions, but he never met Bibi Netanyahu. This guy would say Gandhi invented brass knuckes.”

The deadly closing of the Isaraeli mind

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

The decline in Israel’s reputation since the brutal attack on the Gaza flotilla is unlikely to influence the country’s leaders

By Ilan Pappe

(source: Information Clearing House)

At the top of Israel’s political and military systems stand two men, Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, who are behind the brutal attack on the Gaza flotilla that shocked the world but that seemed to be hailed as a pure act of self-defence by the Israeli public. Although they come from the left (Defence minister Barak from the Labour Party) and the right (Prime Minister Netanyahu from Likkud) of Israeli politics, their thinking on Gaza in general and on the flotilla in particular is informed by the same history and identical world view.

At one time, Ehud Barak was Benjamin Netanyahu’s commanding officer in the Israeli equivalent of the SAS. More precisely, they served in a similar unit to the one sent to assault the Turkish ship last week. Their perception of the reality in the Gaza Strip is shared by other leading members of the Israeli political and military elite, and is widely supported by the Jewish electorate at home. And it is a simple take on reality. Hamas, although the only government in the Arab world elected democratically by the people, has to be eliminated as a political as well as a military force.

This is not only because it continues the struggle against the 40-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by launching primitive missiles into Israel – more often than not in retaliation to an Israel killing of its activists in the West Bank. But it is mainly due to its political opposition for the kind of "peace" Israel wants to impose on the Palestinians.